Minister's biggest challenge
The point man in the OSCE Chairmanship is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ilkka Kanerva, 60 in January. He has described it as the biggest challenge of his long career. It is not only that the Chairmanship fills his calendar; in addition the year 2008 is loaded with political dynamite.
Mr Kanerva's job is all the more complex because of growing tensions among member states. The cold war is safely in the grave, but Russia's comeback in world politics leaves a mark on the OSCE too.
Back in history, the CSCE/OSCE was more about traditional diplomacy and ministerial meetings. But the end of the cold war and the break-up of the Soviet Union caused an upheaval also in its work. Now, the onus is more on down-to-earth issues, from election monitoring to real human rights issues and from democratic values to rule of law.
Because democracy, free and fair elections or human rights still mean different things to different OSCE countries, they are bound to cause friction among them. Arguably the greatest divide exists between some European Union countries and Russia accompanied by some ex-Soviet republics around it.
Finland seems to have registered the challenging political environment by setting realistic, even modest, objectives for its Chairmanship, in the best Finnish diplomatic style. "We should base our action on the broad concept of security, emphasize continuity on the basis of existing commitments, and take into account changing situations", was how Mr Kanerva outlined the coming Finnish balancing act in Madrid in late November.
Kyösti Karvonen is Managing Editor of the newspaper Kaleva
Published January 10, 2008